A southwest Iowa man who was shot three times on May 17, 2010, by an intruder says he noticed something strange when he got home from work. Matthew "Matt" Herring left his construction job in Atlantic early and got home at about 6:00 PM, but the doors of his home near Corning were locked. They're usually unlocked. Then he saw something in the window. "I didn't see a face. I just saw like a silhouette of a person in there and I thought, 'Well, somebody is in the house and that's kind of crazy, and then there was like a split second and he fired three rounds and I caught all three of them, I guess," Matt said, "two in my arm and one in my flank."

Matt, a 28-year-old Iraq War veteran said that after he'd been shot, he ran for cover in some nearby trees. "He tried following me through the timber. I suppose he was going to try to finish me off or whatever," Matt said during an interview. "But I got a hold of my wife and told her not to come home because I'd been shot and I had her get a hold of dispatch here in Corning and I lost signal with her so I hung up the phone so if anybody called me he wouldn't hear (the phone ring) and find me, then I heard some rounds from a rifle...At that time it's when I proceeded to go up the hill to the neighbor's house."

Mathew Herring, courtesy Des Moines Register

Matt was so weakened by the loss of blood that he had to crawl up a hill to reach his neighbor's home. He was flown by air ambulance to a hospital in Omaha and released from the hospital on the following Wednesday. Matt credits his survival from the gunshot wounds to his military training. Doctors left the bullets inside his arm. Matt lost feeling in his arm and some fingers and has limited mobility.

Daniel Beardsley, 16, a resident at the Clarinda Academy, a reform school for at-risk youth, surrendered to an Iowa State Patrol crisis negotiation team following a three-hour standoff. He is accused of shooting Matt Herring after overpowering an employee of Clarinda Academy and stealing an academy pickup truck. Daniel is also accused of shooting Adam County Sheriff's Deputy Jason Swanson when he showed up at the rural Brooks home to investigate.